Unwilling Travellers - the Worldwide Tribe

---

We have BBC World News in our hotel room, and the refugee crisis has really struck me hard. For 12 days, which have felt like weeks, we have been travelling through Thailand and finding our feet. We are elective travellers - a young couple attempting to find our way in the world, open our minds, have adventures and weird food and make friends but always - ALWAYS - we have the safety of a home somewhere out there. Family, safety, food, running water and no matter what, we have each other.



There are MILLIONS of people displaced by a war they had no choice in, being forced to travel through Europe - a pilgrimage of safety with no knowledge of an end. Unwilling travellers. With no base. No safety. Often no shelter or regular source of water or food. Often with children, often with illness, often with death. People and families travelling for months, hopefully able to speak some English, forced back again again from countries that don't want them whereas we walk in and flash a British passport. All because we were lucky enough to be born on a tiny stretch of land in the sea that has somehow become so important that apparently the lives of its inhabitants are above those of the millions of refugees camping in train stations, on streets, at borders. Waiting for a bus that might take them nowhere, or a boat that might just get them across the ocean safely - if they're lucky.



And on the news just now a well-spoken Syrian man has travelled through 4 countries with only a backpack and some friends, just to be shut out of the Croatian border, just because one month ago it was safer to leave his life behind him than stay in Syria.



Rant over - it just felt applicable to put these thoughts in the travel blog. Friends and family at home, if you need a clear out or have a charitable urge, I implore you to donate to causes on the ground regarding this - a great one I've been following in The Worldwide Tribe, who are working in Calais. You can follow them on facebook, and I believe donate through Amazon.



Apologies for the essay. Normal service will resume as of tomorrow!

---